Always Going to End This Way
by gammadolphin
Summary: "Now that it was happening, Sam realized that he should have known it would always come down to Dean. He was the only person Sam would sacrifice the world for. He knew that his brother would never forgive him for what he was about to do, but it didn't matter." end!verse


_**A/N: **This is a oneshot that I wrote after rewatching The End. I've always wondered what made Sam say yes. I know that Dean said it was a 'heavyweight showdown', but I think that he would have remembered it in the least painful way. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my take on this._

**_Disclaimer:_**_ If I owned anything related to Supernatural, I would not have to write fanfiction._

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Sam sighed as he climbed out of his third stolen car of the month. He slammed the door, missing the familiar creaking of the impala, even though it had been years since he had ridden in his brother's car, years since he'd really had a brother at all.

Sam searched the abandoned hotel carefully for any sign of danger. The croats had not been very active in this part of Detroit lately, but it did not hurt to be careful. When he saw no sign of the zombies, he grabbed his bag from the car and let himself into one of the rooms. It was luxurious in that it had a bed, though the sheets were torn and filthy and the springs were poking through the mattress in several places. Still, it was better than the car, or the campsites that he had spent the last several nights in.

The hunter sighed again, collapsing onto the bed once he had removed the sheets. It was no worse than he deserved. Hell, it was probably better. He was the reason that the planet was in this state. It was his fault that millions were dead and millions more were rabid monsters. Sam had thought about ending it, about finding some way to erase himself so thoroughly that even Lucifer would not be able to glue him back together. But a few things stopped him. For one, he felt that he owed the world every breath he had left in his body, to spend the rest of his life fighting against the evil that he had unleashed. He did not have the right to quit, to leave everyone else drowning in the mess that he had created, not to mention the fact that he had no idea how to go about destroying himself so completely that an angel could not repair him.

He probably could have found a way though, if he could bring himself to try hard enough. But he was stopped by something inside him that was immeasurably powerful, though currently latent: his connection to his brother. Because Dean was still out there, somewhere, fighting to correct his brother's mistakes. And as long as Dean was alive, Sam would be too, just in case his big brother needed him. Even though they had been separated for years, Sam would not leave Dean alone in the world he had damned. He owed him that.

Shaking himself out of his cheerless thoughts, Sam laid down, closing his eyes to the depressing sight of the dilapidated hotel room. He did not feel like sleeping, but he knew that he would need the rest. He was planning on using the next day to clear out a pack of werewolves that had been taking advantage of the chaos caused by the apocalypse to claim even more human lives, and it was not going to be easy. As soon as he finally drifted into unconsciousness, the inevitable nightmares came.

"_Sam!"_

_It was a voice that Sam would have recognized anywhere, anytime, and after anything. He turned to see Dean, kneeling worn and bloody in an alleyway, surrounded by what looked like a battered group of hunters. They had disarmed Dean, and were in the process of beating him to a pulp._

_Sam threw himself forward, anxious to help his brother. But he was pinned in place, trapped by the helplessness of dreams._

"_You think you can let your brother start the apocalypse, and no one is going to come after you?" hissed one of the hunters as he landed a punch in Dean's gut. "You think you can destroy the world, and we're just gonna let you live?"_

"_Think again," said another hunter, opening a deep slice on Dean's arm with his knife while another one slammed his fist into Dean's face, the sound of bones breaking audible even over Dean's cry of pain._

"_Sam!" Dean shouted again. "Help me!" _

_Sam struggled harder against the invisible force holding him in place, trying desperately to aid Dean. But he was utterly powerless and could only watch, yelling, as the hunters beat his big brother to death slowly, punch by bone-shattering punch._

_Only when Dean was lying broken and still on the ground, surrounded by gleaming splashes of his own blood, did the other hunters depart. They left their victim carelessly, only pausing when one of them turned back to spit on Dean's body before vanishing into the darkness, probably about to go get drunk and brag about how they had taken out the monster who had let his brother bring about the end of days. _

_As soon as the sounds of their retreat faded, Sam found that he could move. He sprinted towards his brother, turning him over so that his face was no longer smashed against the blood-soaked pavement. No one else would have been able to recognize the mess of torn and bruised flesh that was Dean Winchester at that moment, but Sam could still see his brother in the broken shell. He reached out a trembling hand, trying uselessly to wipe some of the blood from Dean's face. His mind told him that this had to be a dream, but that did little to stave off the storm of impossible grief that was beginning to tear through him._

_But then Dean was gone, and Sam was left clutching empty air. Sam looked around, startled to find that he was no longer in a darkened alleyway. He recognized the fancy hotel room that he had booked when he was trying to evade Dean so that he could kill Lilith. He heard a crash from behind him, and spun to see himself pinning Dean to the floor by the throat._

_Sam winced, remembering the fight, the rage that had spurred him to hurt Dean like that. He regretted it so much now, along with so many other things. His heart twisted at the sound of his brother's gasps as he choked for air. But something wasn't right. Sam had released Dean, had stormed out of the hotel and left his brother to recover. But not now._

"_Stop!" Sam yelled at his double. "You're killing him; stop it!"_

_The other Sam just looked up at him, his features twisted into a sadistic smile while he continued to strangle Dean. Tears began to stream down Sam's face as he watched the spark of life drain out of Dean's eyes, and his body went utterly limp. Not-Sam sent another sickening grin towards his dreaming counterpart before vanishing._

_Sam, freed once more from whatever had been holding him in place, ran forward and fell to his knees beside Dean's body. He took his brother into his arms, as he had been forced to do far too many times in the past. Once again, the rational part of Sam's brain tried to come to his rescue, telling him that there was no way that this scenario was real; he remembered the real version, remembered leaving before he could kill Dean. Unfortunately there was another equally rational part of him, whispering that maybe this _was _the real memory, and that Sam had come up with the harmless one to protect himself from the truth. Before Sam could decide which voice to listen to, the body in his arms vanished again, and Sam found himself standing in another familiar location; Bobby's living room._

"_Not again," whispered Sam. He did not want to go through watching Dean get killed because of him _again. _It was even worse than when Gabriel had trapped him in a time loop, forced to watch his brother die over and over, because it was all his fault this time. But he was still trapped, still powerless to stop whatever had to be coming._

_He could see Dean, standing guard over Bobby in his wheelchair, urgently shouting orders at a small team of fighters. They were facing what was clearly a pack of croats, except that these ones were armed with knives and shards of glass. The humans were putting up a good fight, but it was clear that they were too far outnumbered. It would only be a matter of time before they were overrun._

_Sam tried to cry out a warning to his brother as two croats slipped through the line of fighters and came at him from behind. Dean did not seem to hear Sam, but he did sense the danger. He whirled, dropping the croats with careful shots. Sam sighed in relief, but his stomach dropped when he looked away from his brother._

_While Dean's back had been turned, three more croats had managed to get to Bobby, surrounding him and stabbing him viciously. Dean shouted and cut the monsters down, but it was too late to save the grizzled old hunter who had been like a father to the Winchesters. Dean could not take the time to grieve properly, but Sam could see the depth of the pain in his face before he shut his emotions down and refocused on the fight._

"_Not going well, is it?" asked a soft voice from beside Sam. The hunter jumped, and turned to see Lucifer standing next to him and watching the action with disinterest._

"_Get out of my head," growled Sam._

"_Oh, sure," said Lucifer agreeably. "I just thought you might want to see how big brother was doing without you."_

"_What?" asked Sam, dread creeping into his chest. "No, this is a dream. It's not really happening."_

"_It _was _a dream. The hunters, you strangling Dean, all of that was in your noggin. But this-" He gestured towards the fighting as two more humans fell. "This is real."_

_Somehow, Sam did not doubt the fallen angel. Lucifer was evil, but he was not a liar. But that meant…_

"_So Bobby is really…" Sam did not want to finish the thought._

"_I'm afraid so."_

_Sam looked back at Dean, drowning in the tide of croats, with just two fighters left to defend him. Sam tried to go forward, even more desperate to help now that he knew it was real, that his brother was truly in danger. But he was stopped, still maddeningly held back in the powerlessness of dreams. Lucifer sighed in exasperation._

"_You can't help him, Sam," he said gently._

"_Then why show me?"_

"_Because _I _can help him."_

"_What?" asked Sam, whipping his head around to face the devil._

"_I'm an angel, Sam. I can smite every croat in this house; I can get your brother to safety. But I'm going to need something from you in return."_

"_My consent," Sam stated dully. He watched as another hunter fell under the onslaught, leaving Dean with just one other man._

"_Is it really that much to ask for, if it saves your brother?" asked Lucifer softly, drawing closer to Sam. "Could I really use you to make things much worse than they already are? I'm not evil, Sam, I just believe that humans are flawed. And can you disagree? I know how much you hate yourself. The only reason that you've resisted me this long is that you didn't want to let Dean down further. But if you don't let me in, soon there won't be any Dean left to disappoint. And then what will you fight for?"_

_Sam stared at his brother, Lucifer's words burrowing down to take root in his mind. He had let Dean down so many times, in so many ways. His life was one failure after another. Dean had always given up everything for him, time and again. Didn't Sam owe him the same thing? Not that Dean would see it that way._

_But if he was being honest with himself, Lucifer's offer was tempting for selfish reasons. Sam did not think that he could bear to live in a world in which Dean did not exist. Not again, not after everything. He had so much weight on his shoulders already, but that would crush him away into nothingness. And yeah, maybe other people would die, but Sam could not bring himself to care about them at the moment._

"_You'd save him?" Sam confirmed as the last hunter went down, leaving Dean alone to face the endless sea of croats._

"_You have my word."_

_Sam stared at his brother for another long moment. Now that it was happening, Sam realized that he should have known it would always come down to Dean. He was the only person Sam would sacrifice the world for. He knew that his brother would never forgive him for what he was about to do, but it didn't matter. He would survive, live long enough to beat the devil on his own. Sam did not believe in much anymore, but he believed in his brother. He knew that Dean would find a way to kill Lucifer and fix Sam's mistakes, or die trying._

_As Dean lost his last blade to one of the croats, Sam turned to face the devil._

"_Yes," he said urgently. "Yes, okay? Do what you have to, just save Dean."_

_Lucifer smiled in triumph and closed his eyes, and Sam snapped awake in the hotel room in Detroit, blinking against the blinding light that was suddenly engulfing him. The light grew brighter and brighter, until Sam was drowning in it, losing his grasp on everything that made him who he was. Every particle of his being was on fire, burning him away until he was only an ember, smoldering powerlessly in the furthest corner of his mind._

It was Dean who finally anchored him. True to his word, Lucifer had returned to Bobby's house, wading through the pack of croats that was ripping Dean to shreds, erasing the monsters with careless brushes of his fingers. He placed his palm on Dean's forehead, and the contact with his brother pulled Sam out of the suffocating abyss of light and back into his body. He still had no control over his muscles, but he was aware of what was going on around him, was no longer agonizingly adrift. He felt the fabric of space bend around them, and suddenly they were back in Sam's hotel room, sans bloodthirsty monsters.

Dean was a bloody, broken mess, but with a quick rush of power, Lucifer fixed that, pulling the hunter's soul, which was more stunning than Sam had expected, though twisted by pain and grief and despair, back into his newly repaired body. Dean's eyes snapped open, and he sat up with a gasp. He looked around wildly for a moment, before his eyes settled on the devil wearing his baby brother's skin.

"Sammy?" he asked, sounding younger in that moment than Sam remembered. Sam felt his face twist into a condescending smile.

"I'm afraid not," Lucifer told Dean. "Your brother let me in."

"No," Dean whispered, backing away, his face contorting with agony.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Dean," said Lucifer placatingly. "I won't hurt you, for Sam's sake. Besides, Michael has long since forsaken you; you're no longer a threat."

Dean stared at him, the pain leaching away from his face until the anguish was only visible in the furthest depths of his eyes, numbness and steel left in its wake.

"Oh, you're wrong about that," he said icily. "Because now I've lost everything that I had left, and if you know anything about humans, you'll realize that makes me more dangerous than ever. I _will not stop _until I have destroyed you completely."

"A flea at it's most dangerous is still only a mild annoyance," said Lucifer, that patronizing smile still firmly in place. "I've won, Dean, and there's nothing you can do about it. Your brother understood it, and you should too."

"Don't you _dare _talk to me about my brother," Dean hissed, shuddering slightly as his eyes swept up and down the body of the little brother he had tried so hard to protect, now lost to him forever. "Don't you ever think you have that right. You may not think I'm a threat, but so help me, I _will _find a way to kill you, or I will die trying."

"Oh, I have no doubt that you'll die trying," said Lucifer with a small chuckle. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

He turned and headed for the door. He could have flown anywhere, but he wanted to get used to the new body. Once he was at the doorway, he looked back, letting Sam have one last glimpse of his brother. Dean was standing rooted in place, his face set in lines of pain and his hands clenched into fists, chest heaving. Lucifer sighed.

"Goodbye, Dean," he told the hunter. "I hope for your sake that it's a long time before we meet again."

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_**A/N: **Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed, and I would really appreciate a review, if you have a minute._


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